EL SECRETO MEJOR GUARDADO

A friend of a friend has made me aware of a piece of information that's important (and peculiar) enough for me to think about offering it on the web.

Let me do a short account of the background.

The story starts when a few students, among which was "Cristobal" that first "friend", moved into a flat in the "big city", where they would be spending a period of work experience and postgraduate studies. The flat must have been empty for a while, as the parquet floor was deteriorated, possibly due to the continuous rain water filtrations coming from a balcony door that didn't fully close... and ants and cockroaches wandered around in broad daylight. After doing the minimum work required for the hygiene and habitability of the building (and receiving the gratitude of the adjacent neighbours, for obvious reasons), my friend's life in the city... went by between his work (8 hours daily) and the walls of that flat, transformed in pure library (technical), which was a meaningful coincidence with, presumably, an old use of the building in question.

The flat was furnished and in one of the spacious outward-facing rooms, which balcony was oriented to the east, the other three walls were dedicated in their entirety to library. In various rooms and even along the intercommunicating corridor there were other shelves packed with books, but it was evident that that room had been designated for reading.

The contract had been dealt with through an agency and they had to fill in a personal survey, therefore he didn't have any direct data from the owner. He was allowed to "use everything he found in the flat", and the books were there... among other things.

When the always intimate Christmas holidays arrived, "Cristobal's" friends went away to meet their families, while our main character continued his academic preparation, though with less intensity, since he was expecting the visit of his parents who would spend Christmas Eve and Day with him.

Since his family liked to keep the Christmas traditions, he decided to do some shopping through which to provide the wide rooms with lights and the appropriate decorations. This way it would not seem that they were in someone else's house. Deep in such thoughts, he remembered having seen in an attic packing boxes labelled as "Christmas" and he didn't think twice before looking for them since in case they were to his liking he would use them and one less expense.

What he found was better than expected. If the quality of the decoration had been important in his home, the ones found in that attic was absolutely up to the task. There was a small trunk with figures to represent various moments of the sacred history, multiple boxes with wall accessories and Christmas decorations, pictures, and a metallic box with a "special" contents".

In that box there were not figures, nor lights, nor coloured wooden shaves, but some rolled up sheets of paper. While doing a superficial check he observed the title "The best kept secret" and a handwriting that was readable but very tight. His curiosity was arisen, but his immediate objective was to decorate the house and that's what he did. He thought that after his parents visit, when he put away the decorations, the box would still be there...

However, there was something in that title that attracted his instinct. As soon as he finished identifying and mentally setting up the decorations in the flat, he calculated that the actual decoration would need only a few hours. Thus, he "found time" to investigate the finding that seemed so out of place according to the generic labelling of the package.

Would the characteristics of the box be related to its contents? The box looked like a book, like an old one with leather covers covering the booklets sawn at the back. It was a box of Breton cookies (Trésors de Bretagne. Gâteaux dans la tradition bretonne. Tome II La terre)

There was no security lock, the cover simply fit inside. He smiled thinking that it did not protect much the "treasury" that it might contain...

In addition to the handwritten papers, he also found some pictures, a fountain pen and a small notebook.

He soon realised that satisfying his curiosity would be harder than expected, as reading the manuscripts would be quite difficult. Many of the sheets of paper where stuck (ink sticky and in excess) and after discarding "mechanical" means, he decided to separate them using water steam (humidity + heat). With a great deal of care in order not to dissolve too much of the ink nor to tear layers of the paper, he managed to get access to their reading.

In the solitude of the building his mind was dazzled by the written words. He felt almost like an archeologist or a "graves thief", who crossed a bridge towards... who desecrated the secrets of the past... Bit by bit he started to understand... and decided to discretely request advice before doing something that might have very important consequences.

This is how I happened to get in touch with this material... and with a surprising aspect of the human being.

In short, the friend of my friend found a manuscript, in some sense a diary, in a different sense a biography... in fact, a memoirs. In it, he thought he recognised a wish of being spread (..."to whom it may be of interest"...) which, on the other hand, seemed implicit in its basic contents.

Our common friend, Cristobal's and mine, also doubted about the publishing of the manuscripts and asked for my opinion. As I already said, I think it is possible, within some limits.